Justification of the Ugly Jumper
by pjjammjamm
Summary: It wasn't that she wished he was dead, Petunia reflected as she clutched the jumper in her hands: She just wished she didn't know he was alive. What is the story behind that one paragraph, describing the one time Harry got away with magic as a child? Snape wasn't the only one controlled by Lily's eyes…A character portrait revealing Petunia Evan's Dursley's one moment of humanity.


"Another time, Aunt Petunia had been trying to force him in a revolting old jumper of Dudley's (brown with orange bobbles). The harder she tried to pull it over his head, the smaller it seemed to become, until finally it might have fitted a glove puppet, but certainly wouldn't fit Harry. Aunt Petunia had decided it must have shrunk in the wash and, to his great relief, Harry wasn't punished." -Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Summary: It wasn't that she wished he was dead, Petunia reflected as she clutched the jumper in her hands: She just wished she didn't know he was alive. What is the story behind that one paragraph, describing the one time Harry got away with magic as a child? Snape wasn't the only one controlled by Lily's eyes…A character portrait revealing Petunia Evan's Dursley's one moment of humanity.

There were better options by far available for the boy to wear to school, even among Dudley's old clothes, than the revolting monstrosity she was examining with her bony fingers, and Petunia knew it. As a hardy young man prone to quick growth spurts that expanded him in both ways, Dudley often only wore his clothing a third of the year at most before he simply didn't fit in the items anymore, which was one of the arguments Vernon had used to assuage Petunia's conscience about forcing her nephew to grow up without new clothes of his own. Vernon, it turned out, had been right about how often they would need to buy their boy new clothing, and choosing not to further extend their budget to include funds necessary to purchase new clothes for Harry had kept their overall costs of having two children in the home significantly lower: Besides, the clothes may have been a little faded from repeated washings, but they were otherwise perfectly acceptable.

"Dudley, come on, I just wanted to go out in it for a minute," Petunia heard the boy faintly say from the landing downstairs. "Leave off, I wasn't going to do anything wrong."

The exception to the faded and stretched normal look that was seen in all of Dudley's gently used clothing was the hideous jumper Petunia gripped between her bony fingers now. It's itchy and course fabric and busy design had even forced Petunia to grimace when Dudley had first opened the Christmas gift from Aunt Marge the year before, and after snapping one obligatory picture of Dudley in the offending item to mail off to the gift giver, the sweater had been relegated where it belonged, in the back of Dudley's bottom drawer.

"Liar! You said that last time and look what happened!"

"I told you, that wasn't me!"

"Right, so I guess that snowball just threw itself?"

 _Defying all reason, the flower that had been curled into a small ball in her sister's palm slowly spread its petals, floating gently above Lily's outstretched hand. "Freak!" Petunia shouted out of shock, smacking the frightening flower out of the other girl's hand and running away from the strange boy that had stepped out to argue with her._

 _A moment later she felt shame blossom in her, but by the time she had stopped at the edge of the park and considered turning around to apologize, Lily had a leaf of some kind perched on her finger like a bird, with her big emerald eyes that usually watched Petunia with hero worship instead focused on the strange dark boy in front of her. Shaking with anger, fear, and some other emotion that Petunia was too young to understand, she fled._

Remembering her aversion to forcing her son to wear the jumper in any public setting, Petunia paused in her examination of the offending garment, considering her next course of action. She had avoided thus far this year buying the boy a new winter coat, but after waking up this morning to an unexpectedly early blanket of snow on the ground, Petunia had been forced to admit that Dudley's lost winter coat last year would have to be replaced for the boy somehow. Mulling over the possible alternatives that could be determined after school that day, Petunia decided that ultimately the boy could bundle up for a few more weeks until she had the time and money to devote to finding the boy a warmer jacket, and in the meantime, that involved the boy making due with this jumper.

"No one is going anywhere without being properly dressed," Petunia informed both of the boys, descending the last of the steps and interrupting what had looked to be a burgeoning fight. Her son appeared to be halfway to the level of warm clothing that she expected, with pants and a long sleeve jumper on in addition to his down-stuffed coat, but his feet were still conspicuously bare of socks and shoes. Eyeing his oversight until Dudley connected the dots, Petunia smiled sweetly at her son when he realized what he needed to do to get to play in the snow before school started, and raced as fast as he was able to up the stairs to collect the necessary items.

"As for you, that light jacket you're wearing won't be nearly warm enough, and it isn't water proof," she informed the boy tightly, feeling her lips press together even harder as he shifted his Lily-green gaze from the jacket in question to meet his aunt's eyes.

Petunia immediately averted her own face to focus solely on the offending piece of fabric she was clutching, avoiding the resigned sadness in the expression of the boy before her. It was a lot easier to deal with the boy when she wasn't reminded of where he had come from, and that defeated look he aimed her way separated him from Lily's adoring gaze in the most effective way possible. "Don't look at me that way," Petunia snapped at her nephew, even as she inwardly breathed a sigh of relief at the reprieve from his attention. "I'm not telling you that you can't go outside at all—I know they let you play outside during the school day, regardless of how often I argue that they do otherwise. You'll be wearing this to keep warm today."

The boy examined the garment with open horror, his thoughts of rejection from his classmates and itching in school all day more than apparent on his face. Irritated, Petunia demanded, "Get over here."

"Please, Aunt Petunia, isn't there anything else?" The boy asked desperately, reluctantly taking a few steps toward her in spite of his words.

"Arms up," She responded, grabbing his wrist and yanking it up harshly when the child in front of her continued to move at an exceedingly slow pace. "And no, we don't have the money to go about buying extra jumpers when there are so many available from Dudley that are more than good enough for you. Be grateful I'm taking any steps to keep you warm."

The boy grunted as she pushed his thin, small hands and skinny arms through the armholes, pushing it down until his thick, messy black hair began to stick up through the head hole. "Hold still!"

"I'm not moving!" The boy argued, and Petunia immediately snorted in disagreement. Obviously the child had to be fidgeting, or he'd be dressed and ready for school by now.

 _"I really wasn't moving, Tuney, I promise," Lily argued, holding her bare hands up to show her sincerity. Petunia howled, still rubbing her head at the pony tail where she had felt all the hair on her head be yanked firmly at it's roots._

 _"Then who pulled my hair, Lily? Huh?" Petunia demanded, her voice raising in pitch as the shock of the feeling turned into pain._

 _"Well, whoever did it may've saved your life, Petunia," The girls mother scolded harshly, the anger in her tone overwhelmed by both her breathlessness from running and the terror in her face at her daughter's brush with death. "You weren't even looking at that car, were you? How many times have I told you to look before crossing? What were you thinking!?"_

 _Petunia endured her mother's scolding and fussing, aware now of how lucky she had been that the sudden and unexpected tug at the back of her head had stopped her run across the street. As their mother related the story to their father later that evening, Petunia glanced sideways at her sister, feeling a little remorse for her harsh tone earlier with her sister._

 _Lily caught her expression. "I really didn't pull your hair, Tuney, honest."_

 _Petunia didn't care who had pulled her hair anymore: Even if Lily had been the only one around to have done it, she had clearly done so to save her sister. "I believe you, Lily. It must've been the wind."_

 _The look of misery in Lily's green eyes immediately shifted to one of relief._

"I said, stop it! This instant!" Petunia snapped, at the end of her rope as the boys hair barely cleared the head hole.

"It won't fit!" The boy protested, drawing his arms in closer to his chest and drawing his face away, in spite of the scratchy fabric stretched over his expression. "Please, Aunt Petunia, it's too small!"

Petunia ripped the scratchy orange jumper off the boy's head, a torrent of furious words burning their way up her throat to scorch the tip of her tongue, when she caught the expression in the child's eyes—

Misery. Beyond the misery of an itchy jumper, worse even than the idea of not getting to play out in the snow would be to an eight year old boy, Petunia saw hopelessness in her nephew's green gaze.

It wasn't that she wished he were dead, Petunia reflected as she clutched the jumper in her hands: She just wished she didn't know he was alive —that she and Lily had been able to go on existing as they had in those last several years of her sister's life. The separation between the sisters that Petunia had enforced after her wedding to Vernon had ensured that she could avoid the sadness and guilt that her sister's clear misery had forced Petunia to feel without the unending pain of knowing that she'd never see Lily look at her, with any facial expression, ever again.

Petunia swallowed her spiteful responses to her nephew's protests, unable to tear her eyes away from the young boy's. The jumper, still clutched in her hands, had clearly shrunk, it's size now too small even for the child's skinny frame. The head hole itself looked like an arm opening, and clearly would not pass over the boy's untamable tangle of hair no matter how hard she tried.

Vernon didn't know the jumper had never been worn. As a man, and Marge's sister, Petunia hadn't thought it smart to express her disgust in the garment to him, and after snapping that one quick picture she had honestly forgotten the thing until just this morning when she'd been looking for warm clothes for the boy. It was unlikely her husband would remember that the clothing had never been cleaned. She'd go hard on the boy next time, especially if Vernon was around—they were doing it for him, after all, to protect him from meeting the same fate as his parents. Just this once, though, she'd let him get away with his freakishness and direct that green gaze elsewhere.

"It's fine—I suppose," She could see the boy's eyes turn up at the corners, a smile more hidden than her sister's had ever been, but still apparent in his gaze. "I suppose it must have shrunk in the wash."


End file.
